Online communities have become more prevalent in recent years. Some online communities have developed into personal websites to enable individuals to present their lives and communicate with others. Myspace.com is one example of an online community website. Other online community website examples include web-logs or “blogs,” chat rooms, dating websites, message boards, and other online environments on which users may partake in posting, writing, communicating, or interacting with other online users. While the problems described are directed to online environments, similar problems exist for non-online situations.
A problem that exists for online users is anonymity when online users seek to have verbal communications apart from an online forum. While online forums can provide adequate anonymity between users to avoid problematic or dangerous situations (e.g., stalking or physical harm), a sensitive situation occurs at the time that two users decide to take an online relationship into a real world relationship. For example, in the case of an online dating site enabling two users to meet online, if those users decide to take a next step to have a telephone conversation, one of the users inevitably must provide the other user with his or her telephone number. Providing a telephone number, especially a home telephone number, can be problematic, if not dangerous, since a telephone number can be used to locate a physical address associated with that phone number using a reverse lookup telephone directory or other public or non-public method. As such, online users are generally hesitant in providing their telephone number to other online users even if a significant online relationship exists to avoid stalking and other difficult situations. As understood, a caller can protect his or her anonymity by pressing “*67” prior to placing the call to block his or her caller ID, but the callee does not have an option to block his or her phone number.
One system that has been developed to enable online users to communicate via the Internet using Internet Protocol (IP) “telephones” is provided by a company called SKYPE. This system allows users to download software to their computer and be listed in an online directory that other SKYPE subscribers can access. The online directory enables subscribers to list a user name that only other SKYPE subscribers can call. An IP address or telephone number is assigned to the SKYPE subscribers so that the subscribers can call one another by selecting the user via the directory or call using a phone list stored on his or her computer. While using an Internet Protocol system can provide some anonymity to users since an IP address is not listed in a public directory associating the IP address with a physical address, such a system provides little more than anonymity provided by online community systems and simply provides a telephone-like interface to users. Further, such an Internet Protocol system limits a user to interfacing via his or her computer, which is additionally problematic in the event of a power failure or computer problem.
Because of concerns of providing telephone numbers to other people for safety and security reasons, there is a need to enable online and non-online users to be able to have others contact them without providing a telephone number.